Speech by President of the Republic of Finland Alexander Stubb at the Annual Dinner for the Diplomatic Corps at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki on 8 May 2026

Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

This office carries many traditions. And the annual dinner with the diplomatic corps is one of my favorites. It is a pleasure to welcome all of you once again. I also want to wish you all a good Europe Day, a bit in advance.

A special welcome to the Ambassadors who have only recently begun their posting in Helsinki and are joining us for the first time. If you'll make it through your first November, I look forward to seeing you here next year.

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Dear friends,

We live in turbulent times. The past year has in many ways been a year of reckoning. We have had to face the reality that the world has changed, likely for good.

The international system is being challenged in ways that feel both familiar and unprecedented.

Familiar, because this is not the first era marked by great power competition and conflicts over territory and security. International law has been challenged and violated before. Wars have been launched unilaterally. Institutions have been undermined.

Unprecedented, because of the scale and speed of the change. States once thought in decades and markets in quarters. But social media thinks in seconds, artificial intelligence in milliseconds. And politics and business have adapted. We may fall asleep in one political reality and wake up in another. Power dynamics are shifting and political trust is eroding. Unpredictability and transactionality are the name of the game.

We are also more interconnected than ever before. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and the war in the Middle East affect all of us. Not one of your countries has been untouched by these crises. We all have a shared interest in bringing them to a just and lasting end.

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It is clear that the world order is changing.

This is not a rupture, but a transition towards something new - and the next few years will be decisive. I believe we still have a chance to manage the change. To make sure that the what comes out is a more resilient and equitable system for us all.

As diplomats, you are not in the business of demolishing. You are in the business of renovating and rebuilding. And if we are to rebuild the international system, we must do two things.

First, we must recognize, what is worth preserving: the rules that keep us all safe and the institutions that bring us together: the UN, its institutions and its Charter, human rights and core frameworks such as UNCLOS. These must be strengthened and protected.

Second, we must recognize, what needs to change: the power structures that don't reflect the world as it is today. That applies to the composition of the UN Security Council and imbalances in the international financial institutions, to name a few examples. This transition provides a chance for us to address these challenges.

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You represent more than a hundred countries. Some of your nations are allies, some partners. Some rivals or even adversaries. Yet your task as diplomats is to turn competition into cooperation. To build bridges where others see barriers. To negotiate rather than argue. To fix what is broken. You don't only represent your governments. You represent the very idea of cooperation.

Wouldn't it be great if we could start the biggest global renovation project right here, in Helsinki? I'm a pragmatic optimist. I believe things can change for the better. But only if we get to work together.

Thank you.